The Democratic press. [volume] (Ravenna, O. [Ohio]) 1868-1901, 1887-11-03

VINO had the courage 10 90 WhaJ ne 0id In
order to make Rutherford B. Hayes President
of the United States is not wanting in pluck.
(Cheers.) Why, then, 1 ask, has he not rem
edied this evil if it is within the constitu-
tional power of Congress to remedy it?
All, my friends, 1 fear that my friend Sher-
man was speaking buncombe when he talked
in that way. daughter and applause.) He
knows as we'll as 1 know; he knows as well as
any one of you knows, that he has no right
whatever to interfere with the election of
members of the House of Representatives in
Congress He knows that be might as well
go to Bismark and say, '' l dismiss you from
the chancellorsbip of the German Empire or
of the Kingdom of Prussia" as to go and say
to a member of the House of Represents
tives in Congress, " l dismiss you from your
seat in this body" And why has he no such
power? Because the constitution dec;ar,,,
that each House shall be the sole Judge OF ;i.s,
election returns and qualifications OF lis own
members. The House of Representa- ives
then, alone has this power, and the Senate has
no power over it whatsoever, and Mr. Shef-
man is as helpless as a child to remedy this
evil, even if evil existed. And hence, all he
can do is to come and incite the north against
the south by making such statements as that
to which have alluded
Why, one favorite argument, if it could be
called argument, of theirs is, that it takes
more voters in the north to elect a member
of Congress than it~does in the south, and they
say here in Ohio, for instance, it takes 80 600
or may be 10000 to elect member of Con
gress; that there are that many votes cast al
the Congressional election in each district;
whereas in Georgia it doesn't take half as many;
there are not half as many votes cast there
at Congressional election.
Why, do asn't any man who knows the history
of this country understand that perfectly
well? 1t was the policy of the south from
the very foundation of the government, when
they got an able man in Congress, to keep
him there, knowing full well that Just the
longer he served, just the greater would be
his influence, and so much more good could
he do to his section, and hence we find men
In the south elected to the Congress of the
United States for Is and 20 and even 25 years
l think old Mr.. Mason served % years |
may not be exactly correct in the statement,
man after man has done. And when it is
understood that the member who holds his
seat is certain of reelection, when the election
comes of, people do not care to turn out to
Congressional election, and they never do in
the south, and if all the elections in the south
could be looked at and the number of votes
could be counted or tabulated, you would
find that from a very early period down to
this date, the number of men who voted at a
Congressional election in the south were far
less than the number of men who voted at
such an election in the north. So that there
is nothing strange at all in that, nothing
whatever. But they say this thing happens
because the negroes are tyrannized over, be-
cause they are, to use their elegant language.
bulldozed, and that keeps the negroes from
voting. But that is not all. They ,raw
pictures of the illtrestment of the negroes
that makes the blood in a mans veins run
cold if you believe it. But what do we find
Now, few things are sufficient to answer
all that. If the negroes are butchered by the
wholesale, as they pretend; if they are NAL
treated, as they pretend, in the south, sOhy,
tn Gods name, do the negroes prefer to stay in
the southf I want somebody to answer that.
(Applause.) Why is it that the negroes of
Kentucky do not cross the Ohio River and
come over into Ohio, where they will not be
bulldozedf Not the least bit in the world
On the contrary, if there are not too many
of them come, and want some of the offices,
they will be taken into the fold and embraces
of these Republican leaders, until you would
think the Republican stump-speaker or the
Republican ofice-seeker never in the world
had an idea or dream of that Heaven to which
we all hope to go without having negro to
help him to get in. daughter and appIause)
Why do not the negroes of Missouri cross
the State line; it is nothing but an ideal thing;
the State line can be crossed at a single step
and YOU are out of Missouri and into Kansas
or into Iowa. Why do the negroes o: Mis-
souri, prefer to remain in Missouri? Why do
the negroes of Arkansas stay in Arkansas,
when all they have to do is to step over the
State line, make a step of three lset, and
they are out of the State and in free State
Why do the negroes of Missouri, and abama
and South Carolina, and North Carolina pre-
fer to stay where they were born, and where
they have lived? Do you believe, if they
we're so maltreated, that they would do it !?
Do you believe, if life was made a perfect
hell to them, that they would remain in the
hell, and suffer and suffer and suffer, when
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